ALEVT(1x)

💖 ALEVT 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the Teletext decoder corner of the man pages — this is alevt(1x) and she is iconic ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

alevt — an X11 Teletext browser, no cap 🦋

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

alevt [options]

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so like, alevt is an X11 program for browsing and searching Teletext pages, and it gets those pages from a compatible decoder — rn that means bttv, periodt.

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

here's the whole rundown of command line options, bestie 💖 and btw the X11 user interface gets its own whole explanation inside the built-in manual, so go peek at that too.

• -display display — where the windows should show up. Default: $DISPLAY.
• -geometry geometry — sets the size and the position of the windows. Default: 41x25.
• -vbi device — use this device name. Default: /dev/vbi, /dev/vbi0, /dev/video0, /dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0 — tried in exactly that order.
• -finetune -4..4|auto — if you're getting a ton of decoding errors (you know, those little lightning symbols ⚡), try some fine tuning. This lets you fine tune the decoder circuit. The pre-finetune behaviour was -finetune 0. Default: 1.
• [-parent] ppp[.ss] — opens a new window with the page number given by ppp, plus an optional subpage index given by ss. The -parent keyword is honestly just there for completeness and isn't normally used — the page number on its own is enough. Default: 900.
• -child ppp[.ss] — opens a new child window with the page number ppp and an optional subpage index ss. wanna know what parent and child windows even mean? built-in manual, bestie, it's all in there 🫶
• -erc / -noerc — enables/disables the error reduction code, which swaps out errors on a page using data from a page that was received before. Enabled by default.
• -bell / -nobell — enables/disables the error bell. Normally enabled 🔔
• -charset latin-1|latin-2|koi8-r|iso8859-7 — picks which character set to use. Any characters that aren't in the selected set get replaced with similar looking symbols. (default: latin-1)
• -progname name — specifies the program name, if you're using the DVB interface.
• -pid pid — specifies the teletext PID, if you're using the DVB interface.
• --help — show a summary of options.
• --version — show the version of the program.

⚠️ okay listen, the order of options is important! every page number opens a new window using the geometry, device, and display that were given before it. so like, if you wanna open two windows on the local display and one on display foo:0, you'd start it like this:

alevt 100 300 -display foo:0 100

or, one window from /dev/vbi0 and one from /dev/vbi1 (untested g 🙈):

alevt -vbi /dev/vbi0 100 -vbi /dev/vbi1 100

and the -child options requires a parent window, so it has to come after a parent or another child window. no skipping the line, bestie 💀

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when you're saving pages, alevt asks for a format string. go look at alevt-cap(1) — the chapter called Format Specifiers explains the whole thing 📝

also, alevt has no support for setting or changing the TV channel. that's a job for another program (not supplied) like xawtv or set-tv from the xawtv package. maybe someday there'll be a more sophisticated method in bttv to switch channels and stuff with a dedicated tuner application. but rn? you just have to live with it 😭

the -progname or -pid option specifies the program or teletext PID when you're using the DVB interface.

if you use neither of these two options, alevt outputs informations about the currently accessible streams and uses the first of these PIDs as default. that output contains the PIDs and names you can use as an input for the -progname or -pid option in the context of the currently chosen TV channel. handy ✨

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🦋 FILES 🦋

• /dev/vbi*
• /dev/dvb/adapter*/demux*

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

select the teletext stream by the PID hex value:

alevt -vbi /dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0 -pid 0x0237

select the teletext stream by the PID decimal value:

alevt -vbi /dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0 -pid 567

select the teletext stream by the program name:

alevt -vbi /dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0 -progname ´kabel eins´

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

alevt-date(1), alevt-cap(1), X(3x), xawtv(1x), and the built-in manual 💜

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💀 BUGS 💀

bug reports go to <https://gitlab.com/alevt/alevt> — please and thank you 🙏

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okay that's the whole page bestie, you ate that 🍓 this was Linux, version 1.8.3, and the page is ALEVT(1x) — mwah, bye 👑💖